Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello has granted express approval to the Governing Boards of Kogi State Hospitals Management Board (KSHMB) and Kogi State Specialist Hospital, Lokoja (KSSHL) to replace doctors that have left the state service.
Kogi State Commissioner for Health, Dr Haruna Saka disclosed this to Daily Trust on Thursday while reacting to the exit of about 88 doctors from the state service over the past three years as recently hinted by the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) in the state.
Dr Saka said that measures were also being taken by the government to end further exit of doctors.
He said approval had also been given to the State Specialist Hospital to commence internship training for doctors and also to acquire capacity to train Resident Doctors with immediate effect.
According to him, the governor had granted welfare packages to such new doctors “including interest free loan facilities to help them acclimatize when they come in, in addition to approval given to implement the Sokoto template- an arrangement where doctors in Federal institutions in the state also work in state owned facilities that are understaffed”.
On the mass exit of doctors from the state service, Dr Saka said, “It has been a recurring trend to see Doctors leave State Service once Federal Government opportunity present itself such as lift of ban on employment of Resident Doctors.
“Doctors who have intention of undergoing postgraduate training usually migrate towards Federal Service because till date, only very few states have the capacity to train Resident Doctors.
“We are aware that over 70 doctors have left Kogi service in the last 4 years (since 2015 till date) but the last batch of Doctors that left in recent times left because they were able to secure post graduate training in FG teaching hospitals and bulk of them were those we recently employed.
“Majority of them had passed the primary examination of the National Postgraduate Medical College and West African Postgraduate College. So ab initio we never expected them to stay for long before commencing their training”.
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